Plant Use and Cereal Cultivation Inferred from Integrated Archaeobotanical Analysis of an Ottoman Age Moat Sequence (Szigetvár, Hungary)

Abstract

Suleiman the Magnificent died during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566, close to the battlefield in Turbék Vineyard Hill site, Hungary. On the place of his death, a memorial place was established with a tomb, a mosque, a monastery, and a deep moat system north of the building complex. After its destruction, the memorial place was covered with demolished material and soil. This significant site was re-identified and excavated during the archaeological, historical, and geoarchaeological research work that started in 2015. As a result of the correlative evaluation of previously published sedimentological and chronological data, the filling of the moat accumulated during the seventeenth century. Our goal was the natural and anthropogenic vegetation reconstruction of the adjacent region of the memorial place and the plant utilization of the community living there. During the analyses, more than 30,000 plant remains were identified belonging to 77 taxa. The results gave indications for ploughed lands, vegetable and fruit cultivation, vineyards, pasture lands, forest patches, and trampled areas related to active human activity. The lithostratigraphic and geochronological results of the moat sequence coincide well with our carpological and anthracological data.